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British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC)

Written on 15 Oct 2014

Industry

Media & Broadcast

Location

The UK

Client

The BBC is the world's oldest national public service broadcasting organisation, providing a range of services including 10 national TV channels plus regional programming, 10 national radio stations, 40 local radio stations and an extensive website. Though the BBC mainly serves the UK, the BBC World Service broadcasts to the world on radio, on TV and online, providing news and information in 27 languages.

Challenges

Live events such as the Olympics, Wimbledon or a multi-stage music festival present a TV broadcaster with the challenging question of which sports, matches or acts to show at one time. Multiple streams solve this problem by presenting viewers with a broad choice of sports, matches or stages.

Scope

During the 2012 London Olympics the BBC offered 24 sports events as live feeds on both HD and SD on satellite and cable. The total viewing time was around 2,500 hours. BBC viewers were able to access the different sports events with ease via the red button or EPG. For the 2014 Wimbeldon Championships (June), the Glastonbury Music Festival (running parallel in June) and the Commonwealth Games (August) SES will provide one UK Spot Beam Txp to the BBC. This additional capacity will be used to broadcast five SD streams and one HD stream.

Solution

By offering viewers multiple streams, the BBC will enable almost half of UK households to watch the tennis match of their choice at Wimbledon, their favourite act at Glastonbury and a wide variety of sporting events during the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow.

Quote

Garazi Goia, Acting Director, BBC Distribution said, "Feedback from viewers after the 2012 Olympic Games showed overwhelmingly that the provision of more choice of live events made the Games even more popular and enjoyable. We are pleased to be able to expand our coverage again for the major sporting and music events taking place this summer."